Desolate Devouring Art-Chapter 1394 - Collecting

Chapter 1394 - Collecting
Liu Wuxie had burned through one-third of his soul energy to inscribe the massive soul rune, and the sheer drain alone showed just how enormous the rune truly was.
The soul rune shot out like a bolt of lightning and slammed into the jiao-serpent's body. The jiao-serpent thrashed about, desperately trying to break free from the soul rune's control.
Right at that moment, Liu Wuxie heard a commotion echoing from the passage, and the murderous intent radiating from the Grand Unity Sect experts seeped all the way into the hall.
The jiao-serpent continued to struggle, and Liu Wuxie still couldn't subdue it in a short time. Only after three full minutes did the jiao-serpent finally condense into a light sphere that streaked into Liu Wuxie's palm.
"Excellent! With this jiao-serpent, I'll have a higher chance to escape this place alive," Liu Wuxie murmured.
As for the other martial souls in the hall, he had already brought them all under his control and sent them out to guard the water curtain, preventing anyone from approaching.
After all, refining the divine avatar would require time, and he was racing against the clock.
When Liu Wuxie turned his gaze back to the center of the hall, he saw a whirlpool, and a body lay within it. That corpse had a serpent's head and a human's body—it was the divine avatar of water, Gong Gong.
The whirlpool exerted powerful suction, and Liu Wuxie knew retrieving the body would not be easy. Even from where he stood, he could hear the whirling roar of the vortex reverberating throughout the hall.
"The body has already formed, and Gong Gong will awaken in another year or two at most," Liu Wuxie murmured in relief. He already knew that the divine avatars could revive. When he faced Shebi Shi in the past, he had nearly lost his life to that avatar.
Perhaps sensing danger, the whirlpool churned restlessly as Gong Gong's body twitched, a clear omen that it was going to awaken ahead of time.
"This is bad! I need to refine it now!" Liu Wuxie pressed his hands together, preparing to step straight into the whirlpool.
If Gong Gong truly awakened, everyone present would have to die, and that naturally included him. Without the slightest hesitation, he unleashed the Dragon-Grasping Hand toward the whirlpool.
A loud rumble shook the hall as the whirlpool slammed wildly against the surrounding space, causing the entire hall to tremble. Seawater began seeping through cracks in the restriction and pouring into the hall.
"What a powerful whirlpool!" Liu Wuxie muttered. He had no time left to hesitate and continued to execute the Dragon-Grasping Hand. This time, he poured even greater force into it.
"This is bad! It's Liu Wuxie! He has started to seize the treasure!" someone shouted outside the moment Liu Wuxie exposed his aura by using the Dragon-Grasping Hand.
They immediately sped up, dashing madly toward the far end of the passage. Before they could get anywhere close, countless terrifying martial souls lying in wait ambushed them, and a massacre unfolded.
Liu Wuxie threw the martial souls he had collected into a fierce battle within the cramped passage. The tunnel was narrow, so the pursuers couldn't unleash their full strength. The martial souls were massive in size, so tearing open a path through the blockade was exceedingly difficult.
"Get out of my way!" yelled the cultivators charging at the front. Each one possessed terrifying power at the pinnacle of the Void Realm, and a single strike from them shattered a large number of martial souls.
However, that was nothing more than a drop in the ocean, as there were just too many martial souls to handle.
"Damn that Liu Wuxie! He actually used martial souls to slow us down!" the cultivators behind cursed as their way forward remained blocked. All they could do was watch while Liu Wuxie seized the treasure, powerless to stop him.
While the battle raged violently in the passage, the struggle within the hall grew just as intense. Liu Wuxie repeatedly unleashed the Dragon-Grasping Hand, and bit by bit, he managed to create faint signs of weakening in the whirlpool.
The surrounding pillars shook violently, and the seawater pouring into the hall had already reached Liu Wuxie's feet. Cracks continued to spread along the walls as even more seawater surged inside.
If Gong Gong's body sank to the bottom of the ocean, retrieving it would become nearly impossible for Liu Wuxie. He had to secure it before the seawater completely flooded this place.
"Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron, get ready!" Liu Wuxie called out. He had considered collecting Gong Gong's body directly with the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron, but he dared not act rashly. The pressure inside the whirlpool was so intense that he feared the cauldron could end up getting damaged.
If the cauldron suffered damage, the consequences would be unimaginable. He needed to rip open the whirlpool first before he could safely collect Gong Gong's body with it.
Liu Wuxie let out a roar as dragon scales surfaced across his skin. His strength surged, and in that half-draconic state, his power and control over the Dragon-Grasping Hand increased dramatically, allowing him to unleash a brutal force that tore the whirlpool apart.
"Devour!" Liu Wuxie seized that moment and drew Gong Gong's body into the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron.
Shortly afterward, countless demonic chains shot out from within the cauldron and wrapped tightly around Gong Gong's body, preventing it from escaping. Then, demonic flames roared to life, beginning the refinement process.
However, he didn't stop there. Liu Wuxie even summoned the Avici Hell and prepared the Ghost Pupil as a precaution, ready to unleash the Gate of Darkness at the slightest sign of trouble.
With Gong Gong gone, the whirlpool twisted into a raging storm that expanded rapidly in all directions. It resembled a tornado ripping through everything in its path, shredding every pillar it touched.
"This is bad!" Liu Wuxie shot upward without looking back. Survival came first; he didn't even have time to refine Gong Gong's body.
As the seawater roared, the passage likely cracked under the tremendous pressure, and the martial souls exploded one after another under the crushing force.
"Damn it! What did Liu Wuxie do?!" Once the martial souls that had blocked their way were destroyed, everyone rushed through the water curtain, only to be greeted by the terrifying sight of a gigantic whirlpool barreling toward them.
"Everyone, fall back!" By the time they reacted, it was already too late. The whirlpool reached them, and with a sickening
crunch,
the cultivator at the very front was crushed to death, reduced to a mere smear of blood.
Screams and furious roars echoed amid the chaos, but as the whirlpool grew larger, its tearing force gradually weakened.
Liu Wuxie had already appeared above the whirlpool as the restriction on the ceiling shattered, allowing a torrent of seawater to pour down from above. He raced upward as fast as he could, knowing he would be safe the moment he broke through the surface.
"It's Liu Wuxie! He has already gone up!" Those who had retreated far enough managed to glimpse Liu Wuxie swimming toward the surface through the churning seawater.
In a single collision, the whirlpool instantly killed over five hundred cultivators. The Grand Unity Sect also suffered heavy losses, with one elder at the ninth-level Void Realm dying in the chaos.
When everyone saw the mess of blood and flesh scattered across the ground, their expressions turned dark and heavy. No one had expected to find no treasure and instead suffer such devastating losses after entering the underground world.
The remaining five hundred-odd human cultivators and more than three hundred blood fiends all surged upward, determined to kill Liu Wuxie before he could step into the seventh level.
The cultivators at the ninth-level Void Realm were unbelievably fast, and they soon drew dangerously close to Liu Wuxie.
"Liu Wuxie, die!" Over ten cultivators at the pinnacle of the Void Realm attacked at the same time, and the combined force of their strikes blasted the surrounding seawater apart, carving a vacuum tunnel through the ocean. The power of their attacks closed in on Liu Wuxie's back.
"Jiao-serpent!" Liu Wuxie didn't hesitate and summoned the jiao-serpent martial soul.
The instant it appeared, the jiao-serpent martial soul let out a thunderous roar and released an aura comparable to the pinnacle of the Void Realm, blocking and dispersing the incoming attacks.
The brief opening was all Liu Wuxie needed, and he broke through the surface of the sea in one breath. Meanwhile, the battle in the water raged on as the jiao-serpent martial soul lunged at the humans to buy him more time.
Stairs began to appear in the sky, stretching up with 9,999 steps in total. A gate stood at the far end, clearly leading to the final level. Although Liu Wuxie didn't know what awaited him beyond that last gate, he still shot toward it without hesitation.
As he climbed the stairs, he barely felt any pressure at first. However, when he reached the five thousandth step, the weight crashing down on him grew heavier, forcing his speed to slow.
When he glanced back, the battle still raged below as the jiao-serpent martial soul burst out from the ocean's surface and continued fighting in mid-air.
With a deafening explosion, the jiao-serpent finally self-detonated, and the shockwave it released harvested even more lives.
Many experts bled inwardly with rage and frustration, feeling as though Liu Wuxie had made fools of them. In terms of pure cultivation, any one of them could crush Liu Wuxie to death with one hand, as they all stood at the Void Realm.
However, they had already witnessed Liu Wuxie's methods and cunning many times over, watching him stay one step ahead repeatedly by relying on the Great Spatial Mythical Art and Ghost Eye.
The soul energy released by the jiao-serpent martial soul surged into Elder Shi, and he began emitting crackling sounds. That was a clear sign that he stood on the verge of breaking through to the Earth Immortal Realm.
Liu Wuxie hastened his steps. If an elder of the Grand Unity Sect managed to enter the Earth Immortal Realm, the situation would become highly troublesome for him.
After all, he was already pushing his limits to keep pace with experts at the Void Realm.
The other cultivators rushed up the stairs as well, hoping to close the distance and catch up to Liu Wuxie. As Liu Wuxie climbed, he refinedGong Gong's body, which dissolved into waves of witch energy that poured into the desolate world.
As the divine avatar of water, Gong Gong's body contained terrifying water-attribute energy. More importantly, Liu Wuxie even discovered a fragment of the Great Dao of Water within it. That fragment was a priceless treasure that could further perfect the Great Five Elemental Mythical Art and could even allow it to evolve into an immortal art.
No cultivator could complete a breakthrough to the Earth Immortal Realm in an instant. Elder Shi suppressed his urge to break through and instead launched himself up the staircase, intending to kill Liu Wuxie first before peacefully completing his advancement.
No one knew what awaited them on the seventh level. The gate at the top felt as though it led straight into the depths of the universe, and Liu Wuxie couldn't shake a faint unease that the seventh level would be completely different from the sixth.
The first six levels all bore traces of human activity, yet some unknown force had already wiped out every trace of it.
"Could the loulan race be living on the seventh level?" Liu Wuxie murmured. If the seventh level turned out to be empty, then where had the loulan race gone?
At that exact moment, the Blood Fiend Battlefield outside also plunged into abnormal upheaval as a terrifying black hole appeared in the sky.
The instant it formed, it triggered violent tremors as countless people lifted their heads to stare at the heavens.
"The black hole has appeared again!" This time, there were no three red suns—only the black hole, which emerged out of nowhere.
Ji Yuzhen looked at the black hole, and with no way to evade it, he could only let the black hole devour him. The black hole drew the others in one after another as well.
The black hole lasted only fifteen minutes, yet during that time, it dragged in more than ten thousand cultivators. When it finally vanished, the Blood Fiend Battlefield fell silent once more, as if nothing had ever happened.
By now, Liu Wuxie had climbed to the eight thousandth step. The pressure had intensified again, gathering into a powerful storm that crashed down from the sky.